Pro Tools Session Setup

Okay, so we've got a Pro Tools session up and running. Now, let's make sure that it's actually connected to the hardware appropriately.

Setting Up the Playback Engine

1. Access Playback Engine
   Go to Setup at the top and choose Playback Engine. This gives us the option to choose which audio interface you have. You can see mine's already set correctly; I have my ID 22 from Audient.

2. Selecting Your Interface
   If I click on here, you can see I have several other options available to me. The reason I'm covering this is:

   • If you've got multiple interfaces connected, you need to choose which one Pro Tools uses.
   • Especially if you're on a Mac, you need to be concerned about the Pro Tools Aggregate IO option at the top.

   What is Pro Tools Aggregate IO?
   Pro Tools can take multiple audio interfaces and glue them together into one, which allows them to be treated as a single interface. Great idea, but the trouble is:

   • It's not particularly reliable.
   • A little unstable.

   Troubleshooting Crashes
   If you're having a Pro Tools system that's crashing quite a lot, this is one of the first things you should check. It tends to default to this setting, so be mindful of this whenever you come to a new Pro Tools setup.

3. Using Built-in Inputs
   Sometimes you need to use the built-in microphone and outputs of your computer if you don't have access to an audio interface. Pro Tools treats these as separate audio interfaces, so you would need to turn them into an aggregate to access them.

4. Audio MIDI Setup
   If I quickly have a look under my Utilities folder and check the Audio MIDI Setup, you'll find that:

   • Pro Tools Aggregate IO is selected.
   • This includes the built-in microphone and outputs.

   You can add whatever else you've got here. As mentioned, you should avoid using this if possible.

Hardware Buffer Size

• We'll come to this later; it will affect latency while recording.
• I'll leave the host engine set to ignore the errors during playback and recording, as you might get occasional clicks and pops, but usually, that's not too concerning if your system is stable and well set up.

Dynamic Plugin Processing

• Important to leave this on if you want to maximize your processing when you bypass plugins.
• Currently, I've got the video engine disabled, which is a good idea because it allows Pro Tools to play back video. Turning this off frees up resources for everything else.

Disk Playback

• We can leave this set to normal. In later courses, we will look at more advanced features, but you don't need to worry about them most of the time.

Configuring I/O

Now, let's head back up to Setup and go to I/O, which, as you might have guessed, stands for Input/Output. There are several tabs that we can concern ourselves with:

Input Tab

• This essentially shows the names of the inputs connected to your interface.
• I have 10 options available, labeled Analog 1 to 10 across the top, which have been broken down into five stereo pairs.

1. Managing Inputs
   As a general rule, if you're not using some of these, just get rid of them. When I create 10 tracks in Pro Tools, it defaults to giving them consecutive inputs (e.g., Analog 1, Analog 2, Optical 1, Optical 2, etc.).

2. Customize Names
   A common setup might include an instrument DI'd into one input and a mic plugged into another. Why leave these as Analog 1 and Analog 2?

   • Example: Double click to rename. I'll call this:
     • Microphone for Analog 1
     • DI for Analog 2

Output Tab

• Not much to customize here.

• By default, it doesn't start using any additional outputs.

• You can see down here in the bottom right that my monitor path is set to Analog 1 and 2, meaning that my audio interface's Analog 1 and 2 feed my speakers.

• Preview: You can preview through different outputs, which can be useful with certain plugins or hardware, but there's not much to concern ourselves with right now.

Bus Tab

• The important page to get right here is the Bus.

1. Understanding Buses
   A bus is a summing point. The word 'bus' comes from the Old English word meaning "to kiss," which relates to joining together. Whenever you want to sum signals together, you send them to the same bus.

2. Bus Configuration
   Pro Tools has configured several buses that sum signals, for example:

   • Analog 1 to 14
   • Another batch from 1 to 24

   Both are effectively the same; they are just places where Pro Tools can sum signals.

3. Renaming Buses
   To clarify, I will rename the bus to Left Right Mix. This helps to understand that my signals can be sent to the Left Right Mix bus, which then feeds Analog output 1 and 2 (connected to my speakers).

Final Steps

• The only thing to really worry about here is ensuring that the default output bus is set to Left Right Mix for both stereo and mono tracks.
• It's unlikely you'll need to change this often.

Final Note: Click on OK, and we should be ready to start having some more fun in Pro Tools. See you in a minute!